Villains Don't Do Time! (Night Terror Book 6)

by Mia Archer

  We rounded a corner into an open area that was supposed to lead into the vault where they kept all the villainous toys they’d confiscated when people came to this facility, and waiting for me right there was none other than the warden with a line of his guards.

  That wasn’t what turned the content of my bowels to liquid that tried its best to evacuate into my prison jumpsuit and turn it from orange to brown though. No, that was caused by the line of alien shock troops with their glowing weapons up and ready for business.

  22

  Smash and Grab

  "Get down!" I shouted, grabbing Technomancer and shoving her to the ground.

  I winced as the wind was knocked out of me. I’d forgotten just how much it sucked to get tossed around when I didn’t have my suit on to provide a little bit of cushioning against the ravages of physics.

  Plasma bolts sizzled through the air where we’d stood moments ago. If I'd been just a little late on the old reflexes then I'd have a pretty sizable hole in me right about now, and no medbays to fix me up. Not to mention I wouldn't have any sort of teleportation that could get me out of here.

  At least I assumed I didn’t have any sort of teleportation at my disposal. I had no way of checking without having access to my suit, but the fact that I was living a classic Star Trek plot hole where I wasn’t simply dematerialized out of this place the moment I got here told me there was something preventing CORVAC from getting me out of here the easy way.

  Dr. Lana had developed teleportation interdictor tech. Why wouldn't she sell that along with everything else? She seemed to be hell-bent on selling anything and everything she could steal from me.

  "What are you doing?" the warden shouted.

  "Trying to get my shit!” I shouted from around the corner. “Preferably without having a hole blown in my ass!”

  "I'm not talking to you Night Terror," he snapped. "I'm talking to these alien idiots firing their weapons. We agreed you would take them alive!"

  I blinked. That was awfully charitable of the guy. He didn't have to do something like that. My estimation of him kept going up every time I heard him open his mouth, for all that he seemed to be playing the part of a quisling to a T.

  There was some muffled conversation. Presumably between the warden and one of the aliens. Odd that they could speak English. Or maybe there was some sort of universal translator thing going on here.

  The warden's voice rose. "It's one thing for you to drag my charges off to that ridiculous arena, but it's another thing entirely for you to kill them in cold blood while they're still under my care! I won't stand for it!"

  “Hey, so mister warden?" I asked. "I don't know if this means anything to you, but it doesn't seem like you particularly care for the new boss."

  There was a pause on the other end. I was taking a chance here, but at this point a chance was the only thing I had. This was my one shot, and if I didn't take it then I was going to be screwed for good. There was no way they’d let me procure any my stolen tech if those aliens were the ones calling the shots.

  "What's your point?" he asked. "No one can stand up to them!”

  More angry muttering. It sounded like the visiting aliens really didn’t like me trying to get the quisling to go quisling on the new occupying forces. I didn’t like him reminding me of my failure, for that matter.

  "Well I don't know why you're surprised," the warden shouted. "You assholes have ruined everything here at my prison! We had a good thing going before you came along!"

  "So mister warden," I said, trying very hard to sound all sweet and innocent. Which was pretty easy. Sounding all innocent and cuddly compared to a bunch of jack booted aliens in power armor was easy enough. "What would you say if I said I could take these assholes out? I could put you under my protection if you just let me get my stuff."

  "Why should I believe that?" the warden shouted. “The last time you went up against these aliens you wound up in here!”

  More mumbled muttering. This time the aliens sounded like they were happy about something. No doubt they thought it was hilarious that their fearless leader had taken me out.

  "That's fair," I said, grinding my teeth together and avoiding a couple of choice words that’d lose me the genial rapport I’d developed with this dude. "I'll be the first to admit things didn't exactly go of without a hitch the last time I went up against these alien assholes, but to be fair I was a little distracted. I had two ex-girlfriends coming at me at the same time, and I sort of didn't know one of them even existed and thought the other one was dead. You can understand why I was working through some stuff that gave these blue pricks the upper hand for a little bit.”

  Silence from around the corner. I knew this was probably a stupid thing to do, but I peeked my head around the corner. Just in time for the warden to make a gesture and the plasma rifles to go off again.

  With my head right in their path. Shit. I had a moment to think that at least it wasn’t going to hurt if they got in a hit. That was about the only pleasant thing that could be said for taking a head shot from a plasma rifle at point blank range.

  Those plasma rifles went off at point blank range all right. The good thing for yours truly was they weren’t aimed at me. No, the prison guards fired right into the backs of the alien shock troops. They all went down, holes burned through their chests.

  The warden sighed and pulled out his own sidearm. Lifted it to point at the very shocked alien leader who was staring between the warden and his downed men. Then he went crosseyed as he stared down the barrel of the warden’s gun.

  “Boring conversation anyway,” the warden said, and fired right into the alien’s forehead.

  Turns out all the armor in the world doesn’t do a damn bit of good when a weapon is fired at point blank range into a forehead that wasn’t currently protected by the helmet the alien commander held at his side. Oops.

  I didn't know much about these aliens or how their anatomy worked, but getting a hole shot through their chest cavity or forehead seemed to be enough to take out a few critical organs even if I couldn't be entirely sure what those critical organs were, how they worked, or exactly where they were located relative to human anatomy.

  The warden looked at me. Pulled his glasses off and wiped them off on his uniform. Put them back up on his face, but for a wonder this time around his hands weren’t shaking.

  He regarded me coolly, and for the first time since all this started he didn't look like he was in the mood for bowing and scraping. I eyed that weapon he’d put back at his side nervously.

  I was still very much in the woods here. That thing could still seriously fuck me up if he decided he didn’t want any witnesses to what he’d just pulled.

  I really hoped this guy was on my side.

  "None of the boot licking with me?" I asked, deciding audacity was better than begging. I was Night Terror, after all, and I had a certain reputation to maintain even if it’d suffered recently. "I'm disappointed."

  "I'm sorry," he said. "It's bad enough having to pull that act with your evil ex-girlfriends. I don't want to do it with a villain I have respect for."

  I waved a hand. "No problem. And respect? What the heck are you talking about? Aren't you the warden for a villain prison?"

  The warden frowned. "It's a long story."

  "You know I really hate it when people say things like that," I said.

  "What do you mean?” he asked.

  "I mean clearly we have the time," I said. "Let me into that bag of goodies you have on the other side of that blast door, and tell me your story while I'm looking for my stuff."

  "Oh," he said. "But…"

  "Trust me," I said. “Your prisoners are getting carted off to be killed in small groups, and there are a couple of crazy ladies trying to take over the world at the head of an alien army. Nothing’s going to make things go back to the way they were, so you might as well let the new normal include me getting my stuff and fucking their shit up."

  “I don’t kno
w if…”

  “Would it help if I pointed out that this prison isn’t technically under your control any longer?” I said. “Because it isn’t.”

  “What are you…"

  I laughed and shook my head. "You really don't know?"

  I tried to keep the satisfaction of my voice. After all, this guy had just helped me, but I couldn't help but feel just a little bit of pleasure at his obvious discomfiture. Hey, I'd been hating on the guy for a couple of weeks now. That wasn't something that went away immediately even if he was doing me a solid.

  “Try your comm device,” I said. “Use the one the aliens gave you, not the SuperMax stuff. I’m assuming they gave you some of their toys to play with?”

  "Well yes," he said. "But why wouldn't I use the regular comms?”

  I held up my wrist computer. My grin got even wider.

  "Because it isn't working. Trust me on this."

  He pressed his comm of terrestrial origin against his ear anyway. When that didn’t work he got out the alien comm. His eyes went wide and I knew he had to be finally hearing about all the fun things going down in my cell block. Not to mention the fact that his men were being locked into various locations.

  “That’s right,” I said. “No one’s going anywhere in this prison without my permission. I figure we don’t have long before the aliens figure out something’s going on or someone gets a transmission out and then your window for getting everyone out of here is gone, so what do you do?”

  The good warden’s eyes went wider and wider, and he shook his head.

  "This is all a mess," he said. "A huge fucking mess."

  "You're telling me," I said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the whole city is kind of a mess. The whole world is going to be a mess if we let Sabine and Fialux keep at this.”

  “I don’t know if they have much of a plan,” he said with a frown. “They’ve mostly been bringing heroes and villains to our facility, but they haven’t made any move to leave the city.”

  “And if you think that’s going to last forever then I have a nonfunctional hyperspatial fusion loop that connects to Brooklyn in the warehouse district I’d like to sell you,” I said. “Now could you please tell me what's going on while you let me into your goodies room?”

  I gestured towards the door again. I wasn't sure if this guy was trying to delay me or if he was genuinely shocked and hurt that I’d bested him. Sort of. He could still stop me, after all. I didn’t have any weapons and he still had a bunch of guards with plasma rifles of alien manufacture that weren’t wired into the SuperMax systems.

  He jumped and shook his head. "Of course. Follow me. It's a good thing you ran into me while the aliens were on one of their fishing expeditions to get into that room, too, because this is keyed to my hand and my hand alone."

  I was curious about why the aliens would want to get into that room. I’d have to confiscate everything in there at some point to give it a look and figure that out, but for the moment I had an image to uphold.

  So I grinned an evil grin. "As far as I'm concerned that just means you’re lucky I didn’t find you first. I’d find a way to get that hand print, one way or another."

  He jumped just a little and almost pull his glasses off to polish them as realized what I was getting at. I pointed to the door to prevent him from indulging in his nervous tic.

  "Come on," I said. "We haven't got all day."

  "Of course," he said with a sigh. "Let's get going then."

  23

  Back in Action

  "Well damn," I said. "A lot of the stuff is making a hell of a lot more sense now."

  "Exactly," the warden said. "SuperMax was a paradise on earth for villains who wanted to take a break from society for a little while. We had everything. Fine dining. Exercise facilities. A workshop for villains who wanted to work on their toys between escapes. You could watch whatever you wanted on personal televisions we had to take away the moment Fialux and Sabine took over. We had paradise here and anyone could check in anytime they liked or leave whenever they wanted."

  "Son of a bitch," I said.

  "Pardon me?" the good warden said.

  "It's nothing huge,” I said. "Just that I've been having a tiny crisis of professional confidence lately. Everybody was able to effortlessly escape from SuperMax before Sabine and Fialux came along, and I was wondering what was wrong with me that I couldn't do it when…"

  The warden chuckled and shook his head. "Well of course you had trouble escaping. The place wouldn't be a revolving door if we actually kept everything locked down, as the past couple of weeks have shown. It's been an awkward position of trying to walk the line between looking like we were actually a prison facility and trying to keep my guests happy."

  "So what's in it for you?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow as I rummaged through a few drawers. I had a pretty good idea of what was in it for him, but I wanted to hear it from him.

  "That's simple enough," he said. "I'm compensated very well both for my government work and by the people who come in and out of this facility and enjoy a certain quality of life while they’re visiting.”

  That’s a bingo. The good warden ran this prison on the same principle I used to run the Starlight City PD. Greed. Simple, inelegant, but effective.

  "I'm surprised you managed to keep your government job with the way people can come and go from this place as they please," I said.

  My face lit up. I pulled out my suit. Hugged it to me and felt warmth. I’m not talking warm and fuzzy feelings warmth either. No, the reactor was on standby and ready to do some business which always made it warm to the touch.

  "Hello beautiful," I said.

  I turned to the warden and the guards. Made a little twirling motion with my finger to tell them to turn around.

  "No peep shows here," I said.

  "It's funny you should mention my continued government employment,” the warden said, facing away from me with his hands clasped together behind his back. "Because you are part of the reason why I still have my job."

  "Oh really?" I asked, my voice slightly muffled by the suit all around me. "How do you figure?"

  "Well it turns out the government is so preoccupied with going after the whales such as yourself that they don't care all that much about minor villains. At least not as long as those minor villains don't cause enough trouble that they become whales. We have entire education programs here teaching villains how to lead a life of crime without getting so big that they get themselves, and us, in trouble.”

  “Fascinating,” I said, pulling on my wrist blaster.

  “You’re a big part of the curriculum, actually,” the warden continued in a conversational tone. “The last thing most villains wanted in the old days was to draw your ire. That was well known to be more devastating than drawing the attention of the authorities.”

  I frowned but decided to ignore the backhanded compliment about villains not wanting to draw my attention in the old days. Insinuating that the old days when villains had to fear me were over. I was going to show them.

  “Honestly I doubt most officials even noticed the revolving door here at SuperMax, or would particularly care since they have to worry about stopping the great and powerful Night Terror from trying to take over the city."

  I snorted and rolled my eyes. "As though they've ever been able to stop me. The idiots."

  "I don't disagree with you," he said. "But it doesn't change the fact that you are a part of the reason why this facility is able to operate without much scrutiny.”

  "I can understand why," I said. "I didn't give the place a second thought either. Not until I was tossed in here."

  That was true. I hadn't thought of SuperMax in ages. The combination of bribes and my shark of a lawyer was always good enough that I was out of police custody well before they could even think of bringing charges. That was on the off chance they managed to catch me, which was rare enough before Fialux came along.

  Finally I pulled my belt on. Everyt
hing came back online. All of the biometric readings attached to my contact lenses told me that I was, at long last, finally alive.

  And I suppose there was some truth to that. I was finally coming alive again. It took having my suit on to finally make me whole. Though of course there was still one major problem with my suit.

  "I'm still not getting any communication in here," I said. "What the hell is up with that? I couldn't find any jammer when I was going through the wrist computer."

  "That's kept on a separate system from everything else along with the teleportation interdiction field and access to this room,” the warden said. "A redundancy we put in place to make sure we didn't have any unpleasant surprises from people who smuggled in communication devices, or on the off chance we did have a visit from you considering your habit of dematerializing out of tough situations.”

  "Yeah, well the way I see it you have a choice right now,” I said.

  “Which is?”

  “You can either disable all those jamming fields so I can talk to the outside world and teleport in supplies, or I can blast a hole in the side of your building and fly out or up until I leave the field.”

  “Oh. One moment please," the warden said.

  He put a hand to his ear. His expression grew more and more dour with every passing moment. He looked like someone had just asked him to shove his mother off of a cliff or something.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "It would appear that the initial bout went a little faster than we thought. They are going to be coming for you very shortly, and they're going to be very cross if they come to your cell and find you no longer there."

  "Yeah," I said, holding up my wrist blaster and letting loose with a good old-fashioned ominous hum for old times’ sake. "We're well past the point where I'm going to go quietly, but we might be able to do something with their plans to come get me. I'm assuming you'll need time to evacuate?”